Quick hits: Tick app; Northeast rice crops; health benefits of dancing; moon farms; meteorologists get to Hollywood

As spring turns into summer, more ticks are hitching rides on socks, shoes, pant legs and hairdos. The tiny vectors bite thousands of people each year and spread diseases such as alpha-gal syndrome, Lyme disease, babesiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But there is hope. Researchers are asking people to share their tick bites and discoveries on The Tick App so that their habits can be better understood and more effective preventive practices can be developed. The Tick App also gives tips for identifying and removing ticks.

The Northeast isn't known as a rice-growing mecca, but as the region's climate changes, some farmers are giving the crop a try. "Around New York and beyond, weather has shifted to become more extreme, bringing intense rainfall and hailstorms that could damage crops," reports Alice Sun for Offrange. Rice paddies are flood-resistant, able to withstand extreme weather, and the crop fetches a good price. Researchers at Cornell University, along with some "pioneering farmers are working to make it a more common crop in the Northeast, as a buffer for farmers to adapt to increasingly unpredictable weather."

Maria isn't sure about Elmo's reasoning. (Sesame Street photo)

Fans of "Sesame Street," past or present, may want to watch the new documentary tracing the life and career of actress Sonia Manzan, better known as the character "Maria." As Maria, Manzan became the first Latina to appear on a regular TV series, reports Greg Toppo of The74. The film travels back to Manzan's difficult upbringing in the South Bronx during the 1950s, follows her big break with the musical Godspell, and includes her adventures with Oscar the Grouch and Elmo on Sesame Street. The film is currently touring at film festivals throughout the spring and summer.

Even dancing from a sitting position is considered
healthy movement. (Photo by E. Marritz,Dance for PD)

What activity can be done while sitting or standing, creates joy and is healthy? If you thought dancing, you're correct. "Modern research is now catching up to the fact that dance is medicine, a deeply effective intervention for physical, cognitive and emotional health," reports Michaela Haas for Reasons to be Cheerful. "In a longitudinal study, seniors who took part in regular dance training fell less often and were 'physically better off and mentally fitter' than those in the control group."

It's not going to be science fiction for much longer: NASA is learning how to farm on the moon. "As we get ready to feed astronauts on the Moon and Mars, NASA scientists are figuring out how to build soil from scratch," reports Lela Nargi for Offrange. "Ralph Fritsch, a NASA retiree and lead subject matter expert for the Mars to Table challenge, which seeks to identify plausible 'surface habitat food systems,' believes space ag will probably start with hydroponics. . . . Although Fritsch believes dirt-based space greenhouses are years from fruition, there’s still been heavy investment in research."

Everyone asks about, talks about and complains about the weather -- it's a shared human experience. With the exception of farmers, who are also weather obsessed, few people might glamorize meteorologists. Until now. "Meteorologists are rarely the heroes of major Hollywood movies. Never say never," writes Rebecca Hersher of NPR. "The new film 'Pressure' is a lightly fictionalized version of the actual lead-up to the D-Day invasion of France by Allied troops during World War II, and the crucial role of meteorologists in deciding when that battle would happen." 

Rural communities struggle to find ways to communicate with growing non-native English-speaking population

Despite the ongoing growth of non-native English-speaking populations in rural communities, people in many counties and towns have failed to find effective ways to communicate with residents still learning English. The small town of Elko, Nevada, serves as an example. The town's "Hispanic or Latino population has grown to about 26%," reports Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez of KFF Health News. "The share of people age 5 or older who speak a language other than English at home increased to 18% as of 2022, while Spanish is the language spoken in nearly 15% of households."

With Elko's number of non-native English-speaking residents, the area needs translation support to ensure all residents understand vital information. Unfortunately, "state lawmakers in Nevada left out smaller counties from a recently enacted statewide language-access law," Rodriguez writes. "Not providing language access to people who need it is not only a violation of civil rights protected by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, but it also can create public health and safety concerns said Jake Hofstetter, a policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank focused on immigration policy and research."

While much of rural America is white and English-speaking, its population has diversified, leaving smaller communities struggling to adapt to residents who aren't proficient in English. Rodriguez explains, "Implementing state and local language-access laws, however, is a challenge, researchers say, given standards can vary across state agencies and localities, making it difficult to ensure high-quality assistance is provided to speakers of various non-English languages."

The language-access challenges rural communities now face will continue to grow. "The number of white residents in rural parts of the nation decreased by about 2 million from 2010 to 2020, according to an analysis by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire," Rodriguez reports. "And the percentage of people who are members of a racial or ethnic minority living in rural areas increased from 20% in 2010 to 24% in 2020, with the largest share being Hispanic."

Language access services in metro and urban settings have grown; however, "Hofstetter said he doesn’t see many local policies that focus on the issue in rural areas," Rodriguez writes. "People living in rural areas may still benefit from a patchwork of resources through state agencies that provide services in their counties or local programs required to address language access because of federal funding."

Nonetheless, language barriers put non-native English speakers at a disadvantage. Rodriquez adds, "The degree to which local governments offer communications in languages other than English varies for several reasons, including enforcement of civil rights protections. That enforcement relies on civil rights complaints, which often must be filed by residents who may not know their rights related to language access."

Opinion: Appointed county school board grants itself 'sole authority' over library content; some residents push back

A sign on a road in Hanover County, where a battle is underway over a
push for an elected school board. (Photo by Greg Sargent, Washington Post)

America is no stranger to censorship, with the first U.S. book ban dating back to 1637. Some counties, such as Hanover County, Virginia, have a long history of the practice, writes Greg Sargent in his opinion for The Washington Post. In 1966, its school board removed To Kill a Mockingbird from shelves, and this year, it "removed at least 20 books after granting itself sole authority over library content. Last spring, it renamed a school christened after a Black historical figure," but some residents are resisting the bans in what is shaping up to be "A nasty fight in a rural Virginia school district."

In response, the "Hanover Citizens for an Elected School Board" is campaigning to "take away county officials' power to appoint school board members, who are otherwise insulated from public accountability. Unelected boards are rooted in the state's Jim Crow past, as they were sometimes used to keep Black residents out," Sargent writes. "The case for an elected board in Hanover County, which stretches from Richmond's suburbs into outlying rural areas and backed Donald Trump in 2020 by 26 points, is strong. . . . It is one of only a dozen school boards in the state that are still appointed — and it's the largest among those."

"More residents started joining the push for elected boards last spring. First, the board voted to give itself sole authority over book-banning decisions for school libraries — and then promptly started nixing books from circulation, including several with LGBTQ+ themes," Sargent adds. "Liberal-leaning Kelly Merrill, a University of Richmond professor with a transgender teenager, said she was angered when the school board voted against accommodations for trans students."

"This saga goes back a century. At the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-1902, delegates shut down a proposal for elected school boards after opponents made clear they believed that would give too much 'negro' control over the schools. . . . In the 1950s, the General Assembly retaliated against Arlington County's board (the only one at the time that was permitted to elect members) by revoking that status in favor of appointments. This ratified the idea of appointed boards as a bulwark defending segregation," Sargent writes. 

Historian Peyton McCrary told Sargent, "Appointed boards were part and parcel of how the Jim Crow system operated in Virginia." Sargent adds, "In Hanover, liberals and even some conservatives are mindful of that dark past. This fall, if residents vote to give themselves the power to hold school board members accountable moving forward, it will be another step toward repudiating it."

Alabama agrees to provide sewage-disposal systems to a county, in first-of-its-kind settlement agreement with feds

Sewage overflow in Lowndes County (Photo: Dennis Pillion, AL.com)

Do all Americans have a right to sanitation even if they cannot afford the systems needed to do the job? "The federal government now seems to be answering yes to that question, using a civil-rights investigation to press Alabama to solve long-standing sewage infrastructure problems in remote and lightly populated areas," reports Dennis Pillion of AL.com.

The Justice Department alleged that the Alabama Department of Public Health "engaged in a consistent pattern of inaction and/or neglect concerning the health risks associated with raw sewage" in Lowndes County, a rural, majority-Black county of about 10,000 people. Now Alabama "is the first state to reach an interim settlement agreement with federal authorities on environmental-justice grounds," agreeing to provide the county with adequate sewage treatment. The Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies."

Lowndes County
(Wikipedia map)

Widespread poverty is one reason Lowndes County has been unable to resolve its sanitation challenges. The second obstacle is its very dense Black Belt soil, which "makes many septic systems inoperable," Pillions notes. "Addressing the wastewater needs of each residence in Lowndes County will likely require treatment systems of all different shapes, sizes and technologies [and many millions of dollars, but just how much is still a huge question. . . . Much of the cost will come from federal funds. The agreement stipulates that ADPH should seek funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and other federal grants to conduct its analysis and create an action plan to solve these sewage issues. ADPH will collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and other federal agencies throughout the project."

Hodding Carter III, rural journalist, diplomatic spokesman, documentarian and journalism foundation chief, dies at 88

Hodding Carter III (2003 Associated Press photo by Susan Walsh)

Hodding Carter III, a small-town editor-publisher who became best known as the State Department's spokesman during the Iran hostage crisis, then produced award-winning documentaries and ran the nation's largest journalism foundation, died Thursday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He was 88 and had suffered strokes.

Carter was the son of Hodding Carter Jr., who won a 1946 Pulitzer Prize for editorials that decried racial, religious and economic intolerance. He worked at the family's Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Miss., for 17 years, keeping a gun in his pocket and his desk because of threats the family received for their editorial stances, and won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing in 1961. In 1968 he headed "a racially diverse group that won a credentials fight at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, unseating the all-white delegation by Mississippi’s governor, John Bell Williams," The Associated Press notes. He worked on the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter (no kin), which led to his administration job. He resigned after the failed raid to rescue the hostages, following Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed it.

The Carter family's 1980 sale of the paper to a conservative chain angered some of their liberal readers, reports Harrison Smith of The Washington Post. But Carter returned to journalism as a columnist and broadcast journalist and won four Emmy Awards for documentaries on foreign policy and civil rights. He liked to say, "Power never likes to be questioned, analyzed or covered at all critically." From 1998 to 2005, he was president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and "grew the organization’s endowment to more than $1.9 billion and more than doubled its grants to journalists and news organizations, to some $90 million annually," Smith notes.

One of Carter's last grants was $250,000 to the University of Kentucky to help start the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog and is dedicated to the sustainability of rural journalism. Carter told those seeking the grant that despite his history, the foundation had never done anything for rural journalism, so he was giving them the most he could without running the plan past a foundation committee, according to Al Smith, a retired Kentucky newspaper publisher who was an editor at one of the New Orleans papers when Carter was an intern there. "He taught me how to drink martinis for lunch," Carter said of Smith, who drank himself out of jobs at both New Orleans papers but kicked alcohol in 1962 and was chairman emeritus of the institute's advistory board when he died in 2021.

Carter served two years in the Marine Corps, was a professor at the universities of Maryland and North Carolina, and wrote two books, The South Strikes Back, in 1959, and The Reagan Years, a 1988 collection of essays published from 1981 through 1987. He "held deeply the notion of service — to his country, to justice and equity and to his family — throughout his life, instilling in those he knew personally and professionally 'this incredible sense of social responsibility'," stepson Mike Derian told The News & Observer of Raleigh.

His survivors include his wife, Patricia O'Brien of Brookline, Mass.; four children from his first marriage, to Margaret Ainsworth Wolfe: Hodding Carter IV of Camden, Maine, Catherine Carter Sullivan of Jackson, Miss., Margaret Carter Joseph of Brevard, N.C., and Finn Carter of Worcester, Mass.; three stepchildren from his marriage to Patt Derian: Mike Derian of Takoma Park, Md., and Craig Derian and Brooke Derian of Chapel Hill; a brother, Philip Dutarte Carter; and 12 grandchildren. He will be buried in Greenville. Sullivan told the News & Observer that the family will hold a celebration of life in Chapel Hill at a date to be determined.

Alabama produces three Pulitzer Prizes, including two by a news outlet that's now online-only, and a book of history

The winner of the Fiction prize,
Appalachia's first since 1958

Two online-only publications covering Alabama and Mississippi, including the states' rural areas, were among Monday's winners of Pulitzer Prizes in journalism. In prizes for books, one on a rural Alabama county won the prize for History, and the Fiction prize went to Barbara Kingsolver's latest book based in rural Appalachia.

The top Pulitzer, for Public Service, went to The Associated Press for its coverage of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and the finalists were the Austin American Statesman for its coverage of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and The Washington Post for its investigation of the fentanyl crisis. Perhaps indicating how close the Austin paper came to winning, the Uvalde shooting was mentioned among major news events in the script introducing the announcement of the prizes. 

The prize for Local Reporting was shared by two online-only publications: Mississippi Today, for Anna Wolfe's investigation that revealed how a governor steered millions of  "welfare dollars to benefit his family and friends, including NFL quarterback Brett Favre," and AL.com, for the series by John Archibald, Ashley Remkus, Ramsey Archibald (John's son) and Challen Stephens that revealed "how the police force in the town of Brookside preyed on residents to inflate revenue, coverage that prompted the resignation of the police chief, four new laws and a state audit," the announcement says.

AL.com is owned by the Newhouse family's Advance Publications, which stopped printing its newspapers in Birmigham, Mobile and Huntsville this year. It won another Pulitzer, for Commentary, Kyle Whitmire's  "measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments – and through the history that has been omitted."

Barbour County (Wikipedia)

A book about a southeast Alabama county, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson Cowie of Vanderbilt University, won the History prize. The announcement said Barbour County, where George C. Wallace was born and raised, was "shaped by settler colonialism and slavery," and the book "illustrates the evolution of white supremacy by drawing powerful connections between anti-government and racist ideologies."

The Fiction prize was shared by Kingsolver for Demon Copperhead, "a masterful recasting of David Copperfield, narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them," and Hernan Diaz for Trust, "a riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination of love and power in a country where capitalism is king." Kingsolver lives in southwest Virginia and grew up in Kentucky; her Fiction prize was the first to go to an Appalachian writer since James Agee of Knoxville won it for A Death in the Family in 1958, reports Lilly Knoepp of Blue Ridge Public Radio.

Race and ethnicity figured in other rural-oriented prizes. The Audio Reporting prize went to the staff of Gimlet Media, "notably Connie Walker, whose investigation into her father’s troubled past revealed a larger story of abuse of hundreds of Indigenous children at an Indian residential school in Canada, including other members of Walker’s extended family, a personal search for answers expertly blended with rigorous investigative reporting."

African American banjo and fiddle player Rhiannon Giddens, a native of North Carolina, and Michael Abels won the Music prize for "Omar," an opera "about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries," the announcement says, adding that the work "respectfully represents African as well as African American traditions, expanding the language of the operatic form while conveying the humanity of those condemned to bondage." For the full list of prizes, click here.

How a rural paper hits a target reader — over 60, Black, parent — when its staff has none of those characteristics

"Editors need to have a keen sense of news judgment, which requires a clear view of their publications’ target readers. But what if the target reader is over 60 years old, or African American, or a mother juggling the lives of her children and the reporting staff is young, white and single?"

So asks Buck Ryan, associate professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky, in his latest case study of the Chatham News + Record in Chatham County, North Carolina. He reports that Editor-Publisher Bill Horner III "has found a way to hurdle that challenge in award-winning fashion," getting more prizes "than any other newspaper its size from the North Carolina Press Association over the last three years."

Black History Month coverage included a story about a local woman
who had written a book about her family's white-supremacist history.

Chatham County, has a population of 75,070 people, with a Hispanic community (12%) about as large as its African American community (11%), Ryan notes. Horner has started, suspended, and revived a Spanish-language edition and talked with Ryan about appealing to Black and older residents. The county's average age is 47.

The paper has a “6 Over 60” feature in partnership with Chatham County’s Council on Aging. The paper has sponsored events for COA, which has used grant funds to buy subscriptions for senior citizens who didn’t already subscribe.

Ryan reports that the News + Record's front page "typically contains a photo or a story about someone in Chatham County’s African American community, and asked Horner to describe his approach to news coverage of that community. "We are intentional about it in part because when it comes to news—and recognition in the county—that’s an underserved population," Horner said, adding that it made  aspecial effort to make this year's Black History Month coverage better than last year's, when "in all honesty, we didn’t do a great job last year of highlighting Black history and stories."

Horner said that as the paper has reported the removal of a Confederate monument and the placing of a historical marker remembering local lynching victims, "reaction has been mixed. No question we’ve lost some readers, but we’ve gained others. But it’s news, it’s part of what’s happening in a growing and changing market, and it’s incumbent upon us to take the lead to say what’s happening and why."

Ryan's interview with Horner also touched on the paper's newsletters on parenting and other topics, its staffing, a grant-funded revival of the Spanish-language edition, and a final section titled "Literacy, Good Writing and Required Reading." Some exceprts from that:

"My best writers are those who have been the most devoted readers of books and of great reporting. I hope I can say that I push them to be better writers and reporters. There’s only so much you can teach; there has to be a willingness and a desire to get better on their part, and also the capacity to understand and instinctively know what’s really good when it comes to reporting and writing. So we talk a lot about writing and share 360-degree feedback.

"We talk about what we’re reading. I give my kids books about writing and reporting and recommend books on those subjects to them. For example, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing is one I’ve given everyone. . . . I ask my reporters a lot of questions about word choice and sentence structure. We don’t do it as much in person; it’s mostly often done through editing on our server. As I said, I try to push. I don’t mind telling them a lede stinks; I have them read my stuff, and if my lede stinks, I want to know! . . . 

"One thing I’ll never forget from my studies at the William Allen White j-school at the University of Kansas was one of my professors, Elmer Lower, telling us that the world will always, always need people who write well. If we, as journalists, could develop into strong writers, he said, there would always be a place for us." For Ryan's full report, click here.

Deaths in rural jails: Stories from Ala. and W.Va. highlight broken systems that seem not to protect the incarcerated

Photo by Walker County Sheriff's Office, Alabama

"Your son died in jail." Alongside the pain of taking that in, the human response is, "How? Why?" Nationwide, an unknown number of people die in jail. Relatives of those who have died in West Virginia jails "have similar stories of languishing in heartache and confusion while desperately seeking answers to what happened to their loved ones behind bars," reports Dan Lawton of Mountain State Spotlight. "Of the 52 people who died in West Virginia’s jails and prisons last year, the state hasn’t finished the investigations into 17 of them, going back as far as March."

Lawton introduces Kimberly Osborne, whose son, Ryan Scott Smith, died in his cell at Southwestern Regional Jail in December. "Over that time, she has pleaded with correctional officials, the Medical Examiner’s Office and the State Police for any scraps of information that shed light on his final moments. . . . They haven’t told her anything, except that the case is under investigation. . . . She doesn’t know when — or if — she’ll get a complete account of what happened in the hours before the jail’s warden called to tell her that her son was dead. Osbourne told Lawton, “I’m just trying to get justice for Ryan."

Like Osbourne, "The families of those who have died in jails have been met with similar responses. They make fruitless calls to agency after agency. They wait in limbo for investigations that never end, are denied records that might provide clarity and receive little to no sympathy from public officials, including Gov. Jim Justice, about their losses," Lawton reports. "While there is pending legislation intended to make what happens in the state’s jails more transparent, it may not be forceful enough to provide many families with the information they need."

In Alabama, the story of Anthony Mitchell echoes jailhouse cruelty and a code of silence, reports Sarah White-Koditschek of AL.com: "Mitchell, 33, alarmed his cousin Steve Mitchell when he showed up at his house, acting psychotic, and insisting he must enter a 'portal to hell' in his mother’s attic to retrieve the body of his long-ago stillborn brother. After a 911 call, Mitchell was picked up by sheriffs’ deputies . . . . The Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, according to the suit, told the family they’d get him medical help in Walker County Jail. Instead, guards tased Mitchell and locked him in a freezer, killing him, the suit alleges. The suit filed Monday also contends jail leadership began a cover up of Mitchell’s death hours before he died. . . 'This case,' the suit says, 'therefore presents an appalling question: how does a man literally freeze to death while incarcerated in a modern climate-controlled jail, in the custody and care of corrections officers?'”

It did not end there, "A former deputy also filed a separate, but related lawsuit. Former Corrections Officer Karen Kelly sued the Walker County Sheriff’s Office and multiple officers for being fired and for retaliation after she shared videos with Mitchell’s family of him being abused in the jail."

"Security footage from 4 a.m. that morning showed Mitchell lying naked on a pile of trash on the cement floor of his cell as officers laughed at him, according to the suit," Whites-Koditschek reports. "Video also showed jail nurse, Alicia Herron, enter the cell and spend a couple of minutes inside, appearing to give no medical treatment, according to the suit."

Whites-Koditschek adds, "Jon Goldfarb, attorney for Mitchell’s estate said the videos show correctional officers laughing as Mitchell lay naked and dying. Goldfarb told Whites-Koditschek, “This is the worst case of inmate abuse I have ever seen . . . . People who have seen these videos think they are watching something in Russia or Abu Ghraib . . . . but this happened in our own backyard in Walker County, Alabama."

Quick hits: Remembering the Kings, rural research on a road trip, Appalachian recipes, marvelous maple syrup . . .

The Embrace is more than a memorial. (Photo by Murray Whyte, The Boston Globe)

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King with The Embrace. More that a memorial, the sculpture celebrates the unsung.

The creepiest day on the calendar has returned: Friday the 13th.

January marks the beginning of tax season. Helpful changes to get you started are here. Words of wisdom taken from the "unofficial" IRS website to get you started: A tax loophole is "something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.''  –Russell Long, U.S. senator, Louisiana

A road trip through rural New England is always welcome. Especially when it involves an experiment and several homemade donuts.

Amaryllis, paper whites, or a Christmas cactus, winter slogs on but these gems are still spreading cheer. Notes on how to take care of your holiday plants.

Warm and romantic. In the 1930s, car trips took you to some unexpected places.

The vivid colors and flavors of Appalachian cooking are celebrated in Ronni Lundy’s book Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes.

Maple syrup is more complex than sugar and punches above its weight as go-to ingredient.

Good news: The phrase "it is what it is" has been banished along with nine other skunk phrases that aren't invited to the garden party. Thank you, Michigan.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! When a helicopter shows up in rural town, spectators gather. Kind of like when there's a bear headed into the general store.

N.C. county in turmoil over sheriff who made racist remarks, was suspended and re-elected; state investigating election

UPDATE, Dec. 29: "Almost immediately after he was sworn in Thursday morning for what is supposed to be a four-year term, the local district attorney filed a petition in court seeking — for the second time — to have Greene permanently removed from office, the Durham Herald-Sun reports. Greene's swearing-in was "delayed by post-election protests and clouded by state and federal investigations," notes The News Reporter, which published the DA's petition.

Columbus County in North Carolina

Columbus County, North Carolina, continues its heated debate over Sheriff Jody Greene. The conflict began in September, "when a phone recording from 2019 was released to the media. During the call, Greene called deputies 'Black bastards' and threatened to fire those he believed were aligned with the previous sheriff who contested his 2018 win," reports Ivey Schofield of the Border Belt Independent, a nonprofit started by Les High, former owner of The News Reporter, a weekly in the county.

The anger at Greene, the county's first Republican sheriff, is not limited to his racist statement. Jon David, a Republican and prosecutor in Columbus County, "filed an amended petition to the court on Oct. 21 outlining several other allegations against Greene," Schofield writes. "They include having an affair with a detective in the sheriff’s office, firing a Black sergeant, trying to influence county commissioners and failing to ensure proper supervision at the jail." A judge suspended Greene, who resigned but was re-elected shortly thereafter.

The latest grind is the "election board’s ruling to deny two protests" requesting a hearing to determine if Greene was qualified to seek re-election. "Greene, who was suspended and then resigned in October as the county’s first Republican sheriff, won another term with 54% of the vote." The two residents have filed an appeal with the State Board of Elections.

The board "is investigating two complaints of potential intimidation of poll workers," Schofield reports. "Three precincts on Election Day had malfunctioning equipment and subsequently turned away voters. In response, the state board decided to keep one precinct open late."

Schofield writes, "The local NAACP held a meeting to discuss next steps. The meeting was advertised as a public event by the Columbus County Democratic Party, but a Border Belt Independent reporter who tried to attend was asked to leave by one of the greeters." She writes that Rev. Andy Anderson, who attended the meeting, told her "that the group discussed strategies to engage Columbus County residents across racial and economic divides."

Armed protesters are increasingly using their Second Amendment rights to chill others' First Amendment rights

Armed protestors at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix
Jan. 6. (Photo by Adriana Zehbrauskas, The New York Times)

Armed civilians are increasingly appearing at public protests and rallies, as some Americans believe it's their right to carry a gun almost anywhere, reports Mike McIntire of The New York Times.

"The frequency of these incidents exploded in 2020, with conservative push-back against public-health measures to fight the coronavirus and response to the sometimes violent rallies after the murder of George Floyd," McIntire writes. "Today, in some parts of the country with permissive gun laws, it is not unusual to see people with handguns or military-style rifles at all types of protests."

 
While a June Supreme Court ruling established the right to carry a gun outside the home, some Americans feel that the presence of firearms hampers the democratic process and deepens the country's political divides. "But the effects of more guns in public spaces have not been evenly felt. A partisan divide — with Democrats largely eschewing firearms and Republicans embracing them — has warped civic discourse. Deploying the Second Amendment in service of the First has become a way to buttress a policy argument, a sort of silent, if intimidating, bullhorn." McIntire says, "The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger."

The midterm election in Arizona is an example, McIntire reports: "Armed protesters appeared outside elections center in Phoenix, hurling baseless accusations that the election for governor had been stolen from the Republican, Kari Lake." Also, "In October, Proud Boys with guns joined a rally in Nashville where conservative lawmakers spoke against transgender medical treatments for minors."

Kevin Thompson, executive director of the Museum of Science & History in Memphis, told McIntire that armed protesters prompted the cancellation of an LGBTQ+ event. “It’s disappointing we’ve gotten to that state in our country. What I saw was a group of folks who did not want to engage in any sort of dialogue and just wanted to impose their belief."

The Supreme Court's 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller "made clear that gun rights were not unlimited, and that its ruling did not invalidate laws prohibiting 'the carrying of firearms in sensitive places,'," McIntire writes. "More broadly, there is no evidence that the framers of the Constitution intended for Americans to take up arms during civic debate among themselves — or to intimidate those with differing opinions."

Even in his rural hometown, U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker is not popular among Georgia's Black voters

Herschel Walker with Trump (Audra Melton, The New York Times)

African American Herschel Walker, the Georgia football legend who is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat of Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, is not popular among Georgia's Black voters, including those in his hometown of Wrightsville. The local reasons are multi-faceted, reports John Branch of The New York Times.

"There are easy explanations: Mr. Warnock, who is also Black, is a Democrat who preaches at Martin Luther King Jr.’s former church, and Mr. Walker is running as a Republican tied to Donald J. Trump," Branch writes. But in Wrightsville, the seat of a county with fewer than 10,000 residents, there are "complex reasons."

"Herschel’s not getting the Black vote because Herschel forgot where he came from," said Curtis Dixon, who is Black and taught and coached Walker in the late 1970s. "He’s not part of the Black community." In Walker's final semester of high school in 1980, Wrightsville's Black community protested for more equitable treatment, and after a protest in the town square where Black protesters said they were attacked by sheriff's deputies and white supporters, violence sporadically gripped the town for weeks. Walker never got involved and Black residents in Wrightsville wonder why he has "not used his fame, fortune and now his political standing to raise the voice of those he left behind," Branch reports. "It is a question raised in 1980, echoing in 2022."

Wrightsville in Johnson County, Georgia
(Wikipedia map)

In a memoir written decades after the 1980 conflict, Walker wrote that he "could never really be fully accepted by white students and the African American students either resented me or distrusted me for what they perceived as my failure to stand united with them — regardless of whether they were right or wrong. That separation would continue throughout my life with only the reasons for it differing from situation to situation."

'The biggest social and environmental injustice' in a town of 10,000 is to be eliminated, mainly with federal money

Veterans who live in the neighborhood were on the front row
for Gov. Andy Beshear's announcement of the federal grant.
(Photo by Marcus Dorsey, Lexington Herald-Leader)

In 1965, the year Congress passed the Voting Rights Act and the year after it made Civil Rights Act the law of the land, the City of Paris, Ky. (current population 10,000), built a waste incinerator in the main Black neighborhood of the 13% Black town. The site, which had been a park for Blacks in the days of official segregation. Then it also became the city's transfer station for solid waste, now getting 30 trucks a day at the end of a residential street. Residents have long called the site "the city dump," a term mentioned by the Bourbon County Citizen in its Aug. 11 story about a $2 million federal grant to move the station.

“It’s been the biggest social and environmental injustice in our county,” Bourbon County Judge-Executive Mike Williams said after a press conference Monday to formally announce the grant. Beth Musgrave of the Lexington Herald-Leader paraphrases him: "It’s like so many public-works projects in the 1960s — it was placed in an area that had little political will to fight it." Or political power.

The community development block grant, from federal funds, is contingent on the city coming up with another $2 million by 2024 to finish the project. City Manager Jamie Miller told Musgrave that it might use pandemic relief money.

The sign on the building says "City of Paris Municipal Incinerator." (Lexington Herald-Leader photo by Marcus Dorsey)

Rapid City hotel owner gets big backlash after banning all Native Americans in the wake of a recent shooting

Hundreds of protesters marched in Rapid City, South Dakota, on March 23, angered at the Grand Gateway Hotel's ban on Native Americans after a recent shooting. (Rapid City Journal photo by Matt Gade)

 A hotel owner in Rapid City, South Dakota, is seeing widespread backlash after barring all Native American customers in the wake of a shooting two weeks ago.

It started March 19 when a Native American teen was seriously injured in a shooting at the Grand Gateway Hotel. The next day, owner Connie Uhre posted on Facebook that Native Americans would no longer be allowed in the hotel or the bar and casino attached to it, Sindhara Bonnet reports for the Rapid City Journal. Native Americans are 10 percent of the city's population.

Within days, the indigenous advocacy group NDN Collective sent two members to attempt to book rooms at the hotel. Both were denied service. The group then filed a federal civil rights class action lawsuit against the Retsel Corp., the hotel's parent company which Uhre owns, saying the company had violated the members' legal rights, Bonnet reports.

Meanwhile, the entire staff of the bar and many of the hotel's employees quit after word got out about the ban, Arielle Zionts reports for South Dakota Public Radio.

Connie Uhre's now-deleted Facebook comments,
as tweeted by Mayor Steve Allender

A little over a week after the shooting, several Sioux tribes collaborated in posting what they called a trespassing notice and a cease-and-desist order on the front window of the hotel. The notice, signed by the leaders of the Oglala Lakota, Cheyenne River, Crow Creek, Rosebud, and Standing Rock Sioux, "states the Great Sioux Nation made an investigation that showed the hotel and Uhre are in violation of the April 29, 1868 Treaty with the Sioux," Bonnet reports. "The notice further states the Great Sioux Nation can, without further notice and liability, take possession, destroy, or remove the property at the owners' expense."

The tribal leaders weren't done. In a statement, they said the tribes "are prepared to boycott the entirety of Rapid City, boycott the hotel and its subsidiaries, pressure the Rapid City Council to revoke the hotel's business license, discuss moving the Lakota Nation Invitational elsewhere, move the Black Hills Pow Wow to another location, file hate-crime charges against the owner, push ordinance tax for mental health, address the open-carry law, create a rating system on businesses to track quality of service to Indians and serve the notice of trespassing," Bonnet reports.

Nick Uhre, Connie Uhre's son and the hotel's manager, told SDPR that the hotel isn't accepting any new bookings right now because they're receiving threats of violence, Zionts reports. Nick Uhre is also in hot water with the public after sending an email out to area hospitality managers alerting them about the shooting, encouraging them to stop paying taxes, and blaming a rise in crime on a MacArthur Foundation-funded program that aims to reduce jail misuse and overuse in Pennington County. His mother responded with an email proposing a ban on all Native Americans since "We do not know the nice ones from the bad natives . . . so we just have to say no to them!!"

Other hoteliers responded to the email chain with horror, calling the email "disgusting" and "racist." Mayor Steve Allender also distanced himself from the Uhres in a tweet, saying that "neither the shooting or Grand Gateway’s response to it reflect our community values." 

Nick Uhre got no warmer a reception after appealing to Gov. Kristi Noem, asking her in an email to remove the mayor from office, Nathan Thompson reports for the Journal. Noem's communications chief said the office can't comment on the issue because of the civil suit, but said Noem "is opposed to all racial discrimination – there is no room for racial discrimination in South Dakota."

Legacy-saving editorial wins weekly editors' top prize; other winners deal with pandemic, impact of protests, local issues

New York's Helderberg Escarpment overlooks a site an editorial helped save. (Photo by UpstateNYer, Creative Commons)

Editorials are falling out of favor at many American newspapers, for various reasons, including a desire not to upset and chase away readers. Unfortunately, many rural newspapers don't opine. But one journalism organization with mainly rural members was founded to encourage and advance editorial leadership in newspapers, and the only awards it gives are related to editorials.

The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors gave its 2021 Golden Quill award for best editorial to Melissa Hale-Spencer of The Altamont Enterprise in New York for her piece that was central to a campaign that ensured fairness for an incapacitated subscriber and preservation of historic structures on her 87 acres at the foot of the scenic Helderberg Escarpment, the northeast extremity of the Allegheny Plateau, which overlooks the capital of Albany and the Hudson River.

Hale-Spencer discovered that a court-appointed lawyer was going to sell the property to a developer. “We believe the price is not right and the assets are being ignored in the name of haste,” she wrote, raising other questions about the procedure that seemed to favor the developer. The editorial stirred interest in preserving the property and prompted the judge in the case to appoint an attorney to look out for the subscriber's interests, and to pick another buyer, who not only paid more money but agreed to a conservation easement that preserved the centuries-old house and barn.

Melissa Hale-Spencer

“I feel incredibly lucky to have a newspaper that brought people in our community together to solve a problem,” Hale-Spencer said in accepting the award at ISWNE's annual conference, which was held online. (Next year it will be at the University of Kentucky, July 20-23.)

Pandemic and protests prompt commentary and courage

Noting that two of the 12 winners in the contest's "Golden Dozen" wrote about the pandemic, Hale-Spencer said, "The pandemic has made clear that accurate information can be a matter of life and death." She told the editors, "I urge you to stay strong, to believe in the worth of your work."

Mark Ridolfi, assistant editor of The North Scott Press in Eldridge, Iowa, warned Sept. 2 that inconsistency in state and Scott County measures against the coronavirus were putting residents at risk, and noted the infection of the school superintendent and 40 students. To those who wanted to let the virus "take its own course" and develop herd immunity, he asked, "Who is it OK to infect?"

Fines Massey, editor of the Laclede County Record in Lebanon, Mo., wrote Oct. 17 that virus cases were “skyrocketing” because residents were not wearing masks and keeping their distance. We have to stop shrugging this away,” he wrote. “We have to take this more seriously before it becomes seriously too late.” He also knocked the herd-immunity folks, calling them “incredibly heartless.” He told the editors that local attitudes are "much worse" now, and his publisher "asked if we were beating a dead horse," but Massey said, "If even sway one person, it's important that we continue."

The pandemic was also the topic of the winner of the college division of the contest, The Observer, the student newspaper for the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College and Holy Cross College. On Aug. 21, as students prepared to return, the editorial board implored readers to “approach this virus in an appropriate and serious manner” and “Don't make us write obituaries.”

Two of the Golden Dozen editorials stemmed from the protests spawned by the Minneapolis murder of George Floyd. Rachel Woolworth, managing editor of the Herald Democrat in Leadville, Colo., criticized the local sheriff and police chief for writing, “The media has chosen to focus on Mr. Floyd’s skin color and the police officer’s skin color, because that is what sells.” She wrote, “These words dismiss the existence of institutional racism in our country.”

The hostility displayed by Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter protesters on either side of the main highway in Beacon, N.Y., led Jeff Simms, Beacon editor of The Highlands Current, to acknowledge “the anger and frustration our neighbors feel after a lifetime of slights and centuries of abhorrent treatment. Conversely, most police officers are not racists or rogue and must feel unfairly criticized and taken for granted.”

Other winners were purely local, except Paul Fletcher, publisher and editor-in-chief of Virginia Lawyers Weekly, a statewide publication. He warned against a possible return to a bounty-style compensation system for local prosecutors' offices, which "just looks and sounds bad."

Steve Bagwell, editorial-page editor of the McMinnville News-Register in Oregon, questioned the legal analysis of a judge in allowing "a remorseless teen murderer" to be free at age 25.

Tamara Botting, news editor of The Sachem in Stoney Creek, Ontario, called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to visit the area to deal with a land claim by some local First Nations.

Donald Dodd, publisher of The Salem News in Missouri, called for creation of a utility board "that can acquire an expertise of sorts" after a billing debacle in the city's $8.5 million utility department. 

Lori Freeze, news editor of the Stone County Leader in Mountain View, Ark., endorsed a school-tax hike, saying "It’s generally understood that local economies in rural America are consistent with the success of local school districts." (It lost in a referendum in late May, 927 to 826.)

John Hueston, editor-publisher of The Aylmer Express in Ontario, noted a high local death rate from alcohol and its contribution to the local court docket, and said the province's Liquor Control Board should hear some testimony from victims of alcohol abuse.

Jeremy Waltner, editor-publisher of the Freeman Courier in South Dakota, used a detailed description of the decline of Main Street to encourage the Freeman City Council to make improvements.

The editorials and judge's comments are in the latest edition of Grassroots Editor, ISWNE's quarterly journal.

Feds offers grants for police body cameras in rural areas

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it will release $7.65 million in competitive microgrants to fund body-worn cameras to small, rural and tribal law-enforcement agencies. 

The funds must be used to buy or lease body-worn cameras, and can include reasonable related expenses. Funds can also be used to support body-cam pilot programs, establish new implementation, or expand existing programs. Click here for more information or to apply. Applications are due Aug. 31.

"The grant solicitation today will help law enforcement agencies and their communities improve evidentiary outcomes, and enhance the safety of, and improve interactions between, officers and the public," Bureau of Justice Assistance Acting Director Kristen Mahoney in a press release. "Importantly, this grant program will make it easier for small, rural and Tribal law enforcement agencies to apply for funding. It’s an online application that will streamline the grant process for these agencies."

Pastor known for racial reconciliation work is narrowly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention

Ed Litton speaks at a Southern Baptist Convention luncheon.
(Washington Post photo by William DeShazer)

The Southern Baptist Convention elected the Rev. Ed Litton as its president Tuesday, signaling a defeat for the "hard right" in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports for The Washington Post.

Litton narrowly defeated Georgia pastor Mike Stone, the favored candidate of the right wing, with 52 percent of the vote in a runoff election at the group's annual meeting in Nashville. 

"For the past few years, the convention has been mired in debates over racism, politics and sexual misconduct that mirror many of the same debates in the Republican Party," Bailey writes. "In recent weeks, as leaked letters and backroom deals dominated conversations among Southern Baptists, Litton, pastor of First Baptist Church North Mobile in Alabama, pitched himself as someone who would lead the convention toward more racial reconciliation. Fred Luter, the first and only Black pastor to serve as president of the SBC, nominated Litton for the position."

Critical race theory, a framework for examining structural racism, was a hot topic at the meeting. "Opposition to CRT among SBC leaders led to an exodus of Black pastors over the past year and some feared more would leave if the convention had voted to condemn it," Bailey notes. SBC considered several proposed resolutions concerning the notion, but ultimately adopted a resolution that condemned racism but didn't address CRT specifically.

Ed Stetzer, who once led the SBC's research arm, LifeWay Research, said there was some concern before the meeting that more conservative members would push back against recent SBC efforts to advance racial reconciliation. But "the crowd was younger and more diverse than most expected, and that crowd carried the day," he told Bailey.

Looking at the racial divide between Black Lives Matter activists and officials in Alamance County, North Carolina

A Confederate monument stands in front of the Alamance County Courthouse in Graham, N.C., on June 29, 2020. Nearby in 1870, the Ku Klux Klan lynched the town's first African-American official. (Photo by Julia Wall, Raleigh News & Observer)

After George Floyd’s death, movements for racial justice arose in places large and small, including North Carolina’s Alamance County, population 150,000, between Greensboro and Durham. "As the 2020 presidential election approached, Black community activists were stymied by law enforcement and targeted by pro-Confederate vigilantes," the Raleigh News and Observer reports. "On the last day of early voting, police used riot enforcement tactics on a crowd that included community elders and children as Confederates watched. Over the past year, dozens of Black Lives Matter activists were sent to jail. Many of the charges were later dropped or dismissed."

The News and Observer, with the help of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, has produced "Sound of Judgment," a video-enhanced report on the movement. Read and watch it here.

Manchin says he favors a scaled-back bill on elections

ABC's Rachel Scott interviews Sen. Joe Manchin

Democrats had better scale back their expectations of passing an omnibus bill on elections and voting, since Sen. Joe Manchin said yesterday that he favors a more modest measure.

"The Democrat from West Virginia told ABC News exclusively that he intends to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a more narrowly tailored piece of voting rights legislation that he said he believes could muster bipartisan support even as voting legislation is becoming a flash point between the two parties," Rachel Scott reports.

"I believe Democrats and Republicans feel very strongly about protecting the ballot boxes allowing people to protect the right to vote making it accessible making it fair and making it secure and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, if we apply that to all 50 states and territories, it's something that can be done -- it should be done," Manchin told Scott. "It could be done bipartisan to start getting confidence back in our system." That bill, named for the civil-rights leader and former House member who died last year, would restore federal monitoring of election laws in states with histories of racial discrimination.

Manchin spoke after the Senate Rules Committee voted 9-9 on the Democrats' reform bill, moving the debate to the full Senate. "Democrats have championed that bill as a necessary step to combat state-level changes to voting laws in largely Republican states that they say are aimed at oppressing largely minority, poorer and young voters," Scott notes. The bill would enact "reforms that lower barriers to voting, including automatic voter registration, requiring voter registration on the day of an election and reforms to gerrymandering and campaign-finance laws." Republicans have called the bill "a power grab" that would weaken democracy.

Pros and cons of Ga. election law include some rural pros

Georgia's controversial new election law "does contain new restrictions on voting; some are likely to make it disproportionately more difficult for poorer voters and voters of color to cast their ballots. It’s also correct that there are ways in which the law expands voter access, particularly in ways that will be visible in rural areas," writes analyst Peter Stevenson of The Washington Post.

Perhaps the most controversial provision bans handing out food and water within 150 feet of a polling pace, or within 25 feet of any voter. "Republicans say this is aimed at stopping outside groups from influencing voters; Democrats say it’s supposed to make it harder for people to wait in long lines, particularly on hot or cold days," Stevenson reports. "Election officials are permitted to set up water stations — but they’re not required to do so."

Also controversial, "because critics say it is likely to disproportionately affect Black voters," is this: "Voters who cast mail ballots will have to provide one of several forms of identification," not just a signature that matches their voter registration, Stevenson reports. "The state’s old system required a cumbersome, and some said unreliable, signature-matching process. That’s actually a little bit less strict than some of the strictest voter ID requirements in the country, where photo ID is required."

On the other hand, many rural counties, many of which have heavy Black populations, will now be guaranteed ballot drop boxes. "The law for the first time codifies requirements for a minimum number of drop boxes in each county," Stevenson notes. "The number of drop boxes is so limited, it might not make a huge difference for voters." The law limits drop boxes to one per early-voting site, or one for every 100,000 voters in a county, whichever is least. (Most Georgia counties are small.) The law gives most rural counties one day of early voting, requiring it on at least two Saturdays.

Other major changes in the law include shortening the period for requesting absentee ballots to 78 days from 180, and the start of mailing out ballots 29 days before the election instead of 49, which critics said is too short because of increasing delays in mail service.

A very unusual change has the legislature, now strongly Republican, pick the chair of the state election board, which can take over local elections by suspending up to four county election chiefs at a time. The chair has been Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused Donald Trump's request to "find" votes for him. "This provision seems like a direct reaction to that," Stevenson writes.